THE CHIMNEY SWIFT 



THOMAS NUTTALL 



THIS singular bird, while passing the winter in tropical 

 America, arrives in the middle and northern States late 

 in April or early in May. Its migrations extend at least to 

 the sources of the Mississippi where it has been observed by 

 travelers. 



More social than the foreign species, which frequent rocks 

 and ruins, our Swift takes advantage of unoccupied and lofty 

 chimneys, the original roosting and nesting situation having 

 been tall, gigantic hollow trees, such as the elm and the 

 buttonwood or sycamore. The nest is formed of slender twigs 

 neatly interlaced, somewhat like a basket, and connected suffi- 

 ciently together by a copious quantity of adhesive gum or 

 mucilage secreted by the glands beneath the tongue of the 

 curious architect. This rude cradle of the young is small and 

 shallow, and attached at the sides to the wall of some chimney, 

 or the inner surface of a hollow tree. It is wholly destitute of 

 lining. 



So assiduous are the parents that they feed the young 

 through the greater part of the night; their habits, however, 

 are nearly nocturnal, as they fly abroad most at and before 

 sunrise and in the twilight of evening. The noise which they 

 make while passing up and down the chimney resembles 

 almost the rumbling of distant thunder. 



When the nest gets loosened by rains so as to fall down, 

 the young, though blind, find means of escape, by creeping up 



5S 



